


Disconnect

by oceansinmychest



Category: Wentworth (TV)
Genre: Character Study, F/F, Hate Sex, Implied Fridget, Obsession, Obsessive Behavior, One Shot, One Shot Collection, Smut, seasons 3-5, westfallen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-26
Updated: 2017-11-26
Packaged: 2019-02-07 00:03:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,026
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12828990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oceansinmychest/pseuds/oceansinmychest
Summary: A series of oneshots to convey the relationship between Joan Ferguson and Bridget Westfall.





	Disconnect

**Author's Note:**

> I wasn't satisfied with their eval in s4 though I found it quite revealing. All lyrics included are from In This Moment's song, "No Me Importa."

> _I'm definitely out of my mind.  
>  I know there's something not quite right.  
> Disconnect - system override._

“You've been the talk of the prison lately, Miss Westfall.”

With the ball in her court, Joan Ferguson sits at ease in her sterile, militaristic office. She reclines in her seat. Broad shoulders shrug. Up, down. The motion rivals the sea on the verge of conquering another lost ship.

“I pay no attention to gossip, Governor.”

So self-assured, Bridget Westfall conducts herself with a vague semblance of professionalism. She is a blip on the radar. A wrench in Joan's Machiavellian plans. For that, she must be pushed. She must go.

“Joan,” the detested sapphic psychiatrist (psychologist; they're all derelict professions in Ferguson's opinion) appeals to her humanity by using her first name. “Psychopaths have no regard for emotion. There is no empathy guiding their ulterior motives. You may as well equate psychopathy to a machine.”

Derisive arms rest on the sides of her plush, leather armchair. A single hand flexes into a fist. One by one, fingers curl. The ministration resembles cogs in the machine, clicking and rubbing against one another. Her cheeks hollow. She parts her lips, but not a single sound comes out.

"With all due respect, you've a deficiency in character. You claim to be a saint when you stray far from the light. What makes you any different from the prisoners? Nothing. No party is innocent," Bridget quips.

Bias taints her (their) views.

Joan regards her with a frigid silence.

A lame God is in the service of a prosthetic God during this painful meeting. Arms fold across her chest. Bridget follows suit. Both adjust the lock of hair that loosens at the temple. They mimic one another: a mirror and yet, not.

Joan begins to question her own motives thanks to Westfall's crippling misdiagnosis. Irked, she stiffens.

“I believe we're done here. You may go.”

She dismisses the blonde with a wave of her hand. Bridget promptly stares, offering a cryptic stare that threatens to pick her apart on a mortuary slab, as if the Devil's rope burns her throat.

Alone, the thinking machine obsesses. Joan brings her hands together, elbows on her desk. The heels of her palms dig into her black hole eyes. There is nothing ethical about this. Bridget Westfall will pay for a tortured mind _never_ rests _._

> _You're so brave from your side of the glass._

Safe from other poisoned devils, the fox resides in her glass hen's coop. In protective custody, recently admitted Joan Ferguson sits on the edge of her cot. Liar's hands rest in her lap, palms down, smoothing out the wrinkles from the fabric of her trousers.

Resembling the fallen Morning Star, her dark halo, strung with silver, frames her sallow cheeks. An apex predator's heady, white-hot stare focuses on the transparency of the cell. Her dry tongue caresses the ridges that riddle the roof of her mouth.

Shiny, vibrant heels click down this lonely, prison corridor. In a pretty, little blazer and long trousers, Bridget Westfall makes her presence known.

Joan interprets the coy glimmer in her sapphire stare as a familiar look; she's seen it on the Doctor's face back at Sinclair: that need to dismantle blesses a helping hand with a God complex. At the memory, her upper lip twitch. Gradually, she lifts her head.

Insults flow naturally as Bridget inspects her.

The feeling is mutual.

Bridget fascinates as the source of her embittered envy.

"Does your femininity contribuTe to your empowermenT or the fact that you believe you're helping these women? Sanctity's in style these days, Miss Westfall."

A sinister voice sounds smoother than silk. Even the Devil has a honeyed tongue. Even though they're on opposite sides of the playing field, these women teeter on a fine line of ethics.

With a muted groan, Joan stands. A victim to age, the joints in her knees pop and creak. She brushes the imaginary dirt from her shoulder.

Offering a strained smile, Bridget tilts her head. Folds her arms across her chest as the caged lioness creeps closer.

"You psychologisTs are all the same. You seek to exploiT rather than correcT."

“Oh, Joan.” Bridget sighs. “How far you've fallen.”

It's better not to admit how perturbed Bridget is by the comment. Instead, the blonde rewards Wentworth's newest prisoner with silence. She has the courage to walk away.

> _And you're - you're playing God with your remote control!  
>  But I - already know that there's a flaw in my code._

Perched at opposite ends of an interrogation table, this is no last supper. Thine enemy remains true. A persecuted woman still manages to be calm and collected. The ebony curtain, threaded with grey, pools over broad shoulders. Prisoner Ferguson turns her face to the wall. Beneath the table, her hands twitch.

“Do you feel adequately prepared for general?”

An obligation to the job compels Bridget to ask. She doesn't want to be here. She has no desire to fall beneath the sway of Joan's grand manipulations. She's seen the number she's done on Spiteri, on Smith, on Slater, on Vera for Christ's sake. The woman's a cunt; no amount of trauma condones the act.

Within her nimble grasp, the number two pencil wags like a dog's enthusiastic tail. At this very moment, she'd rather be leading another support group or offering her condolences and sympathy to a more deserving inmate.

Still, Governor Bennett has made this meager request to see if Joan Ferguson passes the bloody test.

Her mouth opens. Closes. Scrutinizes with that simmering stare.

“Why else would I consent to the fact?”

Tension suffocates the air between them. Irritated, Ferguson shifts in her chair. This seat cannot keep her. It's no throne – the very device her body's been made for. Like a viper, her shifting and twisting is slight, but deliberate.

"You are naught but a sheep in the company of a lion, BridgeT."

Smirking, the saboteur celebrates her minute victory. Bridget doesn't poke the hornet's nest despite the compulsion to fight back, to defend her beliefs. Her tongue sticks to her cheek. She looks up. Her glance flicks back down. The tip of a number two pencil scritches and scratches at the page. Such a crisp sound resembles bare branches scraping a window pane, over and over again.

“You're not assessing; you're scoring,” Joan points out coolly.

A series of 1,2,3 mark the gridlines.

“You had such a happy upbringing, didn't you? My, you were the apple of their eye... A daughter who could do no wrong. So, what happened? How'd you fall out of favour, hm? Did a bad man **corrupT**  you?”

She laughs and it's venom. It's acid scourging the blonde's flesh. Bridget fights off a summer shudder. Her jaw clenches. Concern piles up the lines on her forehead. The Wicked Witch (read: _bitch_ ) smiles.

_Ah._

“Recording again, are we?”

Ferguson's black hole eyes flick to the security camera, all knowing and omniscient.

“Francesca Doyle has a knack for making herself out to be a... social pariah and you have yourself an aching, bleeding heart. You want to bandage up her tragedy, don't you?”

Smirking, Joan's hands come together. Fingers interlace. She leans forward. Consumes open space.

Finally, Bridget sets down her pencil. She leans away, her head up.

“I see that emotional deficit still ails you.”

The smirk vanishes.

> _And the, the truth is that you silently study me._   
>  _And there are consequences that you cannot see._   
>  _And you ask yourself, “How did I unplug?”_   
>  _But the simple truth is that I just don't give a_ _**fuck** _ _._

A proverbial chess match occurs. En passant assumes. Having witnessed Joan Ferguson's fall from grace, Bridget enters the medical wing. Her ID grants her entry. On the outside, a screw lingers.

"You're _ruined_ ," Ferguson whispers aside, as if she's conversing with a well-known stranger in the room, but there's no one there save for ghosts and demons.

With her hands in her pockets, Bridget watches. Her brow furrows as she recalls Matthew Fletcher's account of Ferguson's “unhinged” behavior.

_She's gone mad._

Bridget swallows the lump in her throat. No matter how fucked up Joan is, she doesn't deserve to suffer – Or maybe she does. Conflicted, Bridget doesn't count her blessings. She only makes her presence known.

“Who are you talking to Joan? You're not acknowledging me, I know.”

The taller woman, seated on the uncomfortable cot, twitches. She cocks her head. Again, she exudes her typical confidence. Deflection comes naturally. This isn't chess. This is fencing on the defense. Arrogance wears a multitude of dresses.

“Have you come to analyze me again? Haven't had enough of your fill?”

A bruise imbues Joan's cheeks with a rosy hue.

So one's become the patsy.   
"And your little skirmish in the yard?" Bridget inquires.

"Self-defense," Joan reiterated, calm and composed. "I had no choice but to defend myself."

"You think you're above this."

Bridget turns her head. She looks to the transparent door, reminded of the glass ceiling that comes down upon all women. Still, they tear themselves – and each other – apart.

"Sure of yourself, aren't you?" Joan quips devilishly, brandishing a half-smirk as though her smile's the blade. The blood on her temple has been wiped away, but the brand from the makeshift weapon remains. It will take days to fade and weeks to heal. "If you recall correctly, I never settle."

She drums her fingers against the metal bar of the cot.

The forensic psychologist recognizes a hopeless cause when she sees one. There is something so intrinsically self-destructive about Joan's behavior, but what drives the martyrdom? She's dying to know.

"I have no reason to fear you."

The Devil take a stand. She towers over Miss Westfall. Encroaching upon personal space, she relies upon old intimidation tactics. Bridget expects Joan's hair to be coarse when it touches her cheek, but it's painfully soft. The softest things kill the most, she's come to learn.

"Pray tell, do I fit your psychopathic mold?" Ferguson whispers into the shell of her ear where her lips brush ever so tantalizing.

The scene plays in the vein of inherent vice (a term Bridget first learned of in university): a conservation term that refers to an intrinsic characteristic of an object that causes it to self-destruct.

"Out of sight, out of mind."

Joan taps her temple. She retreats to her bed.

And the snake slithers away.

> _You say you're the cure, but I smell your disease.  
>  I've figured you out like a rat in a cage._

In another tight-fitting blazer with shoulders that jut out sharper than a knife, Ferguson's eyes could eat her alive. Instead, Joan scrutinizes. She judges. She picks apart. She dismantles.

“"My, what **big** heels you wear. These provocative, little numbers charm no one save for Doyle. Ah, allow me to correct myself: Francesca, as you two are so... intimaTe.”

“What the _fuck_ do you want?”

On an emotional bender, Bridget Westfall slurs. She's not in the mood. Popping a painkiller and chugging straight from the water bottle, the blonde throws her head back. If only it were vodka in a flask, instead. The drawer to her desk slams shut.

“I can see this... affair with Franky Doyle has had a negative emotional impact on you.”  
Ferguson leans in close. Two fingers wag mid-air, lackadaisically.

This personal vendetta knows no bounds.

"How... emotionally corrosive it must be to fall for one so completely. You've become unhinged, Bridget." A smug smirk.

You've done the same.

The thoughts **refuse** to reach Bridget's tongue. Closer, Joan approaches. The door is closed, locked, barred in this lethal spar.

"Look at yourself," Joan ridicules. "How far you've fallen. You've strayed from your moral highway, _Doctor_."

Like a paper doll, the blonde falls down. Exasperated, she sinks into her seat, akin to a stone lost to the sea. The curtain of her hair brushes against Bridget's cheek. Joan hovers over the desk, her hands placed upon each armrest. Again, Joan goes on with one of her _fucking_ monologues.

Visibly shaken, Bridget stumbles. Fumbles for words. The intrusion of personal space feels like breaking down. It's an insult, a slap.

"Someone's been neglecting her patients," Ferguson taunts.

She takes a breather, her head tossed back, nostrils flared. Her hair flows in an abysmal wave, obscuring a part of her face in a phantom-esque mask.

"I'm not doing this anymore," Bridget declares. The palm of her hand hides her mouth. "I will not fall for your grand manipulations. I don't have time for your schemes."

"It's eating you _alive_. You want to forget. She's always been the unfaithful sort, toying with other women like bait."

"Such trying times, Miss Westfall. Tell me, is that alcohol on your breath? What a risk."

Closer, she comes.

Bridget Westfall has become the cliché moth dancing toward spurned flames.

Their faces linger in nearby proximity. Still drunk off the few glasses on an empty stomach during lunch, she inches towards danger incarnate. She bites down on Joan's bottom lip, ethics be damned.

The tongue that meets hers is hot, wet, and caustic.

The kiss eats her alive far more than her conscience.

> _You start to panic when you realize - you try to_  
>  Shut me down when you look in my eyes no matter  
> How hard you try and rewire me  
> Or psychoanalyze my psychology.

She examines her scarred, splayed fingers in the privacy of Bridget Westfall's office. The office is rather expansive despite the proper lack of certification. Idly, Joan notes this as her gaze cuts across the room.

The inmate settles into the gaudy, yellow armchair as though it's a throne.

"How is Doyle faring these days?"

Curiosity piqued, Joan fires her bullet. Proudly, nobly, she dons her foil. She swishes the blade. Annoyed, Bridget looks up from her notebook. She doesn't keep a planner, a day-to-day agenda. Rather, she is the type to remember – to make small annotations when compiling her reports.

Joan wonders how she scores this time around.

“I'm not discussing other inmates.”

“You know, I feel for you, Miss Westfall.” A wistful sigh. “She's so close yet so far away.” An outstretched arm sails through the air, pretending to be a maestro for the obstrusive stare of the solo audience.

Her eyes venture to the plant atop the desk.

Exasperated, Bridget shakes her head. Her spiral earrings jingle and sway. Her lower jaw threatens to come unhinged. Patience is a virtue though she isn't some patron saint. She sets her pen aside.

"You know... Your victims have gained self-awareness, Ferguson. What do you gain out of this?"

A derelict hum.

"It's a long game."

“I'm busy, Joan. Find somewhere else to workshop your monologues.”

Before making her soldier's retreat, the Devil takes a stand. She reaches for the a tissue. Plucks one straight from the box, meant to console tear-stained women. With a startlingly amount of care, she brushes the corner of the desk. Wipes clean the slate.

There, Joan perches herself. Long legs cross over one another. At the ankle, they wrap. She bends down and reaches out to tuck a stray strand of hair behind Bridget's ear. The touch lingers, her scarred fingers slithering down that taut, quivering throat.

"And how do you rank my crimes?"

"Oh, Joan,” Bridget swallows. “You're one fucked up case study."

Someone's been wallowing in their own, chaotic delusions again.

> _Don't tell me you're pure as you spread like a plague._

As a prisoner, a primitive calling reigns supreme. It rings true. She plucks the strings to bear witness to the titular domino effect that she has contributed to here at Wentworth.

At wit's end, Bridget Westfall threatens to fall into the mouth of madness.

In Ferguson's protective cell, she gawks at the lion resting comfortably in her den. Solemnly, Joan marks her page and casts aside her read of the evening. Milton's _Paradise Lost_ kills time while she waits for the pieces to fall into place.

"Tell me. How does it feel to engage in the **unconventional** , Miss _Westnull_?"

Her gravelly baritone rumbles like near-distant thunder. This kind of woman will eat you alive: a preying mantis with a hankering for women. Bridget doesn't know what the fuck she's doing – why the fuck she's here.

Franky's hurt her.

Whispered rumors of an affair with Novak strikes her aching, bleeding heart. She loves Franky, but it's too much. She's tried to be an anchor, an equal, a positive force, but all good things seem to collapse.

What a cynic Ferguson's made her into it.

It seems she's been molded after all.

"Now, now. No need to be so obtuse. Come here."

In a come hither gesture, Joan crooks her fingers. She stands. Enchantment brings Bridget forward. She's had a shot this afternoon from a nipper buried in the confines of her purse. Self-destruction has never been her vice until now.

Love will do that to you.

And ruin will drive you into the arms of a vicious burden.

“You are such a bloody bitch,” Bridget snaps. Barks. Clenches her teeth.

Still, she allows for the fingers to toy with the hem of her blouse and untuck them from her pleated skirt. The floral print falls open. Entraced, she listens to Ferguson's low hum. Weakly, her fists beat against that furnace chest.

“Yet, you want iT” comes the sardonic reply.

Claws trace over lace. Fingers press into her. Even here, even now, the former Governor manipulates. With ease, she breezes past the bridge of her panties. Shallowly, her index finger parts her lips. Sinks deeper, past the folds, into her aching core.

It's a temporary fix when you're shadow's changing skin.

Bridget's head falls back while Joan toys with her. Plays her for another pawn to rival the unsaid between Franky and Allie. Call it bad writing, call it an ulterior motive; it's what you make it to be.

The heel of her palm digs into her clit and provides a delicious friction. Repetitively, friction incites a spark.

When she comes, hot muscle twitching and milking the Devil's hand for all it's worth, she swears she sees stars and the embodiment of her own guilt.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I'd been planning this for months, but FINALLY had the time to write it all out. Hope you enjoyed it. 
> 
> As an aside, I'd been listening to Nine Inch Nail's "The Lovers" while writing this, too. Another classic.


End file.
